Hello, my name is Sabrina! I started commenting on the blog just barely after the forums were down so there’s the odd chance someone may think, “Hey… that name sounds oddly familiar… eh, not important” or something like that. I’d like to introduce myself really fast and ask a few questions.

First of all, there’s a 99% chance I won’t be extremely active here. I’m not a big fan of internet forums because I’m bad at staying consistent on them, and I usually find myself preferring to browse and lurk rather than speak. This usually ends up with me in the awkward situation of knowing everyone on the forums and yet no one really knowing that much about me. I suppose that is the lot of one who lurks instead of posts.

I found HeroMachine when I was looking for something I could use to make quick images of superheroes for a tabletop RPG I am the game master for. (I play the old Marvel FASERIP system by TSR. Even though this system came out before I was born, it’s got to be my favorite.) I instantly fell in love with version 2.5 of HeroMachine but version 3 confused me, so I largely ignored it until recently. Now I’m amazed at how much more I can do with it and I’m eager to continue to discover new tricks.

If anyone has any tips for a newbie, that would be wonderful. I look forward to learning from the experienced members and seeing what else this site has to offer.

Oops, I forgot my questions. *facepalm* Did I forget to mention that I’m absent minded?

My main question is this: Do you guys do all that fancy shading by placing another, similar item in a transparent color on top of the item you wish to shade? That’s how I’m doing it so far… but I’m wondering if there’s a better way.

Second, does anyone else ever try to use just part of an item? Like when you place another item on top of it so you can only see half of it? I’m curious if there are better, more efficient ways to accomplish some of these tricks I’m trying.

For the first question. There’s a fancy way of adding shading and highlights that’s called Zypping around here. It’s named that after an old user called Zyp, who was the master. Anyway, I think this is zypping. Just go in the patter items. Not the section when you’re editing an item, but actual section of items called Patterns. Go to the last page. You will see two circle fading things. One is darker in the middle and light on the outside, and the other way around for the the other one. Choose the one that’s darker in the middle. When it’s on the “field”, make the first color totally transparent so you can’t see it. Make the second color whatever you need it to be to shade or light something. Then place it over it, and resize it. As an example, I put my character Scorp, and an unshaded version of him. With the shading and lighting, all it is is doing what I told you. With the armor, I just had gold armor, then made the second color on the patter a lighter color then the armor.